Obituary Brewer Obituary

Durango resident David Clifford Brewer died Saturday, Oct. 9, 2010, at Four Corners Health Care Center. He was 91.

Mr. Brewer was born to Minnesota artist Edward V. Brewer and Ida Brewer on Aug. 4, 1919, in St. Paul, Minn. His father, who gained fame for his Cream of Wheat advertisements, often used Mr. Brewer and his sister, Barbara, in his work.

His family said Mr. Brewer led an inspired life and achieved successes in aerospace, engineering and construction.

After attending the University of Minnesota and leaving needing only five credits for his degree in engineering, Mr. Brewer and his first wife, Phyllis May Brewster Brewer, the mother of his daughter, Stephanie, moved to California. The marriage later ended in divorce.

As a flight engineer of the China Clipper during the early years of World War II, Mr. Brewer learned to make every drop of fuel count as they flew among the islands of the South Pacific with no radio beacons. After that experience, he was tapped by General Dynamics/Boeing/Lockheed to apply his expertise to the design of the fuel-flow systems of both the Boeing B-29 and the Lockheed Constellation tri-tail.

Mr. Brewer's wife of 20 years, Dona Kane, was the mother of his daughters Barbara and Diane. The marriage ended in divorce.

He had a daughter, Gabrielle Ann "Tikki" Brewer, with his companion Lois Eldridge.

He was also the testing-systems coordinator for the Atlas missile project. Mr. Brewer and Wernher Von Braun consulted on their projects when Mr. Brewer was working on the Atlas project and Von Braun was working on Redstone. Mr. Brewer and his team of 40 engineers, working at the old black-and-white cathode-ray tubes seen in movies about NASA, were responsible for getting the Atlas flying in the late 1950s. The Atlas, the backbone of NASA for more than 40 years, finally retired in the mid-2000s.

Mr. Brewer wrote a book about fuel systems for the Army.

On July 20, 1970, he married Mary Lou Neilson in Sioux Falls, S.D. The couple had a son, Anthony, and a daughter, Heidi.

During the Vietnam War, Mr. Brewer was hired by Federal Cartridge near the Twin Cities to update bullet-manufacturing technology, which hadn't changed since World War I. The equipment he designed produced bullets at the rate of 1,200 a minute.

He went back to work for space-power group at General Dynamics for a couple of years to work on offensive controls on satellites to protect them from enemy attack.

Mr. Brewer had an entrepreneurial streak. In the mid-1960s, he designed and marketed the Ceramic Masters potters wheel. And in the early 1980s, he worked with a team of engineers on a solar-bulb project in the early days of solar-energy research.

When he wasn't solving engineering problems, Mr. Brewer was building houses and condominiums in both Minnesota and California.

In his spare time, he enjoyed fixing and selling cars. Mr. Brewer was fond of working on Datsun 240Zs and 280Zs.

The Brewers moved to Durango in September 2001.

"He was radically creative, wickedly intelligent and wonderfully bohemian," his family wrote. "David filled 91 years full of love, joy, chaos, inspiration and delight. His family will miss him terribly and cherish his memory forever."

Mr. Brewer is survived by his wife of 40 years, Mary Lou Brewer, of Durango; daughters Heidi King of Durango, Stephanie Alexander of Champaign, Ill., Dona Barbara Cromer of Los Alamos, N.M., Diane Pfeifer of La Jolla, Calif., and Gabrielle Brewer of Riverside, Calif.; son, Anthony Brewer, of Yuma, Ariz.; and three grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held at a later date.

Memorial contributions may be made to Four Corners Health Care Center, 2911 Junction Street, Durango, CO 81301.